A jury deliberating in the Anna Nicole Smith drug conspiracy trial wants to know how Howard K. Stern, who is not a doctor, can be charged with unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance to the former Playboy model.

In a new twist at the Anna Nicole Smith drug trial, prosecutors are casting the dead celebrity model in the role of coconspirator who pressured her two doctors and her lawyer-boyfriend to provide her with excessive prescription drugs.

The Anna Nicole Smith trial’s approaching outcome is sure to reverberate among doctors and pain management patients whose need for drugs is at the heart of California laws under which the defendants are charged.